5% women’s parking quota in north Delhi

NEW DELHI: With over 1 crore registered vehicles, finding a legitimate parking slot in Delhi is a daunting task. To ease citizens’ woes, the corporations have now proposed to reserve space for women and differently abled citizens.

North corporation has already cleared the changes that are now being incorporated in all existing terms and tenders. Parking contractors have been asked to earmark 5% of space for women in market places as well as in underground and parking facilities. Similarly, 3% of the space will be kept exclusively for the differently abled, a senior north corporation official said. The move is a part of 11 recommendations made by an HC-appointed committee to streamline parking in the city, which has 251 legal facilities managed by the corporations. Prem Shankar Jha, deputy commissioner of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, said they were putting up boards and using thermoplastic paint to highlight reserved spots. Currently, 102 parking sites are being run by SDMC, 99 are with north corporation and 50 with EDMC. The east corporation has informed the committee that work is under way to raise the number of official sites to 150. Some other key recommendations made by the committee, and to be implemented by the civic bodies, include formation of 12 joint action committees — one for each administrative zone — comprising representatives of Delhi Police, corporations and traffic police. The actions of the JACs will be monitored at the additional commissioner level every fortnight. “Lack of coordination between contractors, police and civic officials results in mushrooming of illegal parking contractors. The prime mandate of the JACs is to ensure that all illegally operating sites are cleared on a regular basis,” a north corporation official said.

Handing over of parking lots to new operators, too, has been a contentious issue. “From now, all takeovers will be signed by the contractor and an officer of the corporation, along with DCP traffic. The whole process will be videographed. No deviation or addition will be permitted after the tendering process is over. The contractor will be solely responsible for any encroachment,” the official said. Other reforms, in various stages of implementation, include use of mobile apps for monitoring and regulation of parking sites, marking ofsites by yellow thermoplastic paint and a uniform colour code.